Android developers take note: Eclipse with the Android Development Tools (ADT) is no longer the only player in town when it comes to developing Android applications. JetBrains, the maker of IntelliJ IDEA, which was open sourced about a year ago, today released version 10 of their IDE, which, among other improvements, includes support for Android in the free Community Edition. All versions of the Android SDK are supported, including the recently released Gingerbread.

As an Android developer myself, I am constantly frustrated with Eclipse, constant IDE crashes, and millions of quirks that ADT seems to have. Therefore, I welcome the competition and will definitely be trying it out.

You can find the full release notes for version 10 and the press release below:

Numerous enhancements to the UI and user experience, both in the editor and the IDE as a whole

JetBrains reinvents IntelliJ IDEA with a stack of new features in both free and ultimate editions, adds Android support to the free Community Edition

Prague, Czech Republic, December 9, 2010 — JetBrains, the creators of intelligent, productivity-enhancing tools for software developers, have announced the public availability of IntelliJ IDEA 10, the newest version of its award-winning IDE for JVM-based and polyglot development.

The tools developers use today determine what kind of software we will use tomorrow. As the inventor and champion of many developer productivity concepts, with this release IntelliJ IDEA enters a new decade of excellence and innovation.

"During the last few years we've seen a boom of new cool technologies that every developer wanted to use. And IntelliJ IDEA has been on the cutting-edge, supporting them all," said Max Shafirov, IntelliJ IDEA project lead. "Last year the industry settled down somewhat on a stack of technologies used for application development, and we took this chance to review IntelliJ IDEA from the user experience perspective. We revisited the most common actions that developers perform dozens or hundreds of times a day and made them smarter, faster and easier to use."

To remain on the cutting edge, IntelliJ IDEA 10 brings numerous improvements for its many supported technologies and frameworks including Spring, GWT, Groovy/Grails, and Flex/ActionScript while adding new ones like Spring Roo, AspectJ and ColdFusion.

JetBrains also expands the target market for its Community Edition with the addition of Google Android support. The IDE offers comprehensive support for the latest Android SDK and modern Android development practices such as unit testing.

The key features of this version include:

* Significant enhancements to the user interface and user experience, both in the editor and the IDE as a whole * 100% faster code indexing, and an overall performance increase * New code completion behavior with automatic invocation while typing * Better support for distributed version control systems such as Git and Mercurial * Updated Maven integration with Maven 3 support, new dependency diagram, POM refactorings and more * Integrated database table editor

To learn more about what's new in JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA and to download the edition of your choice, please visit the official IntelliJ IDEA website at http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/?IJ10PR.

About JetBrains

JetBrains is a technology-leading software development firm specializing in the creation of intelligent, productivity-enhancing software. The company is widely known for its award-winning Java™ integrated development environment IntelliJ® IDEA (see details at http://www.jetbrains.com/idea), TeamCity — a continuous integration and build management environment (http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity), and YouTrack — an innovative web-based bug tracker (http://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack), among others. JetBrains maintains its headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic and has R&D labs in St. Petersburg, Russia and Boston, Massachusetts. For more information see http://www.jetbrains.com.

Artem is a die-hard Android fan, passionate tech blogger, obsessive-compulsive editor, bug hunting programmer, and the founder of Android Police.
Most of the time, you will find Artem either hacking away at code or thinking of the next 15 blog posts.

Comments

http://www.friedsoftware.com David G. Friedman

I had no idea it was open sourced over the last year.. cool! The last time I'd looked at it there were licensing costs that made me stop using it because I'm a poor guy looking to do Android stuff for fun but not for free.